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Press Releases

(HUNTINGTON)— Joey Trader, Ed.D, MSN, RN, CNE, has been named St. Mary’s vice president of Schools of Nursing and Health Professions and the director of the St. Mary’s School of Nursing.

A 1997 graduate of the St. Mary’s School of Nursing, Dr. Trader actually began his nursing career at St. Mary’s Medical Center in 1995 as a nurse extern. After graduation, he worked in the St. Mary’s emergency department as a registered nurse for 11 years before beginning his teaching career in 2008.

Dr. Trader received his doctor of education in teaching and learning from Liberty University. He received both his master of science in nursing and nursing education and his bachelor of science in nursing from Marshall University.

(HUNTINGTON)— St. Mary’s ER and St. Mary’s Regional Heart Institute congratulate Cabell County EMS and Lawrence County EMS on each receiving the American Heart Association’s Mission: Lifeline® EMS Gold Plus Award for implementing quality improvement measures for the treatment of patients who experience severe heart attacks.

Every year, more than 250,000 people experience a STEMI, or ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction, a type of heart attack caused by a blockage of blood flow to the heart that requires timely treatment. Mission: Lifeline seeks to save lives by closing the gaps that separate STEMI patients from timely access to appropriate treatments. Mission Lifeline’s EMS recognition program recognizes emergency responders for their efforts in improving STEMI systems of care and improving the quality of life for these patients.

Agencies that receive the Mission: Lifeline Gold Plus award have demonstrated at least 75 percent compliance for each required achievement measure for two years.

Each year, St. Mary’s ER treats thousands of patients with chest pain, providing advanced life-saving treatment options for those who are having a heart attack. The partnerships with Cabell County EMS and Lawrence County EMS is vital in providing that advanced care to patients.

St. Mary’s Medical Center brings GoNoodle to local schools to increase physical activity of elementary age kids

More than 26,000 students in 81 elementary schools in six counties are moving more with GoNoodle’s in-classroom physical activity movement and mindfulness videos

(HUNTINGTON)— St. Mary’s Medical Center is leading a new initiative to get elementary-age kids more physically active.

The initiative uses GoNoodle, a set of online movement and mindfulness videos that get kids running, jumping, dancing, stretching and practicing moments of mindfulness right next to their desks. Research shows GoNoodle’s in-classroom physical activity improves childhood health, student behavior and academic performance.

St. Mary’s is underwriting the cost of GoNoodle’s videos for all public elementary schools in Cabell, Wayne, Lincoln, Putnam, and Mason counties in West Virginia and Lawrence County in Ohio. HIMG and First Sentry Bank are also partnering with St. Mary’s for the project in Cabell and Putnam counties.

“GoNoodle is one of the most amazing products I’ve seen to get kids active in the schools as they learn in an academic setting,” said David Sheils, president, St. Mary’s Medical Center Foundation. “St. Mary’s is committed to improving the health of our young people and this is a way to make it part of their daily activity.”

The St. Mary’s-led initiative is the first such sponsorship of GoNoodle’s premium version, GoNoodle Plus, in West Virginia schools. GoNoodle Plus includes additional videos and games that bring movement and core subjects together to develop fluency in grade-specific math and English Language Arts (ELA) topics. GoNoodle Plus also allows teachers to have the ability to customize GoNoodle content, which further supports their lesson plans and academic goals of the classroom.

“We are excited to join with St. Mary’s, teachers and parents to add much-needed minutes of physical activity for Tri-State-area kids,” said Scott McQuigg, CEO and co-founder of GoNoodle. “When kids move more, they do better in school and grow up to be healthier adults.”

According to the CDC, only one-quarter of today’s youth meet the current recommendation of at least 60 minutes of physical activity per day. The GoNoodle-St. Mary’s partnership will allow local students to earn those vital minutes of activity with entertaining experiences that feature high-energy dance music, fitness routines, virtual field trips and physical challenges.

To use GoNoodle, teachers need to have a computer with an Internet connection and a shared screen, such as a projector or interactive whiteboard. At home, kids can create and customize their accounts (with parent verification) and play GoNoodle online, on a mobile device, or on Apple TV. Elementary teachers, parents and kids in Cabell, Wayne, Lincoln, Putnam, Mason and Lawrence counties will have access to GoNoodle Plus by signing up at www.gonoodle.com.

GoNoodle is used in over 600,000 classrooms worldwide with more than 12 million kids playing GoNoodle each month, generating more than five billion minutes of movement in the past year.

(HUNTINGTON)— St. Mary’s Medical Center was among a select group of hospitals nationwide recognized for promoting enrollment in state organ donor registries in a national campaign sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The campaign has added 400,000 donor enrollments to state registries nationwide since 2011.

St. Mary’s conducted awareness and registry campaigns to educate staff, patients, visitors, and community members about the critical need for organ, eye, and tissue donors and, by doing so, increased the number of potential donors on the state’s donor registry. The hospital earned points for each activity implemented between May 2015 and April 2016 and was awarded platinum recognition through the HRSA Workplace Partnership for Life Hospital Campaign.

Of the 995 hospitals and transplant centers participating in the campaign, only 281 were awarded platinum recognition during this phase of the campaign.

This campaign is a special effort of HRSA’s Workplace Partnership for Life to mobilize the nation’s hospitals to increase the number of people in the country who are registered organ, eye, and tissue donors and, ultimately, the number of organs available for transplant. The campaign unites donation advocates at hospitals with representatives from their local organ procurement organizations, Donate Life America affiliates, and state and regional hospital associations. Working together, the teams leverage their communications resources and outreach efforts to most effectively spread word of the critical need for donors. St. Mary’s worked with Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates on the campaign.

St. Mary’s Regional Cancer Center first in state to offer new spacing device to benefit prostate cancer patients

(HUNTINGTON)— St. Mary’s Regional Cancer Center is helping to pioneer a new tool proved to protect prostate cancer patients from the negative effects of radiation therapy.

Patients at St. Mary’s are now being injected with SpaceOAR® hydrogel, the first FDA-cleared spacing device to protect the rectum in men undergoing radiation therapy for prostate cancer. The SpaceOAR System is intended to temporarily position the anterior rectal wall away from the prostate during radiotherapy for prostate cancer, creating space to protect the rectum from radiation exposure.

St. Mary’s is the first cancer center in West Virginia and one of the first centers nationwide to adopt the advanced technology.

“Providing the best possible treatment to patients is our top priority, which is why we are one of the first centers offering SpaceOAR hydrogel,” said Sanjeev Sharma, MD, board certified radiation oncologist at St. Mary’s. “Creating space between the prostate and rectum is an important advance that significantly protects the rectum during radiation treatments, and reduces the likelihood of side effects. Men facing prostate cancer may have some difficult decisions to make, but utilizing SpaceOAR hydrogel during radiation therapy should not be one of them.”

Because of the close proximity of the prostate to the rectum, prostate radiation therapy typically results in some radiation hitting the rectum, which can sometimes cause side effects. The SpaceOAR System creates space and pushes the rectum away from the prostate and the high dose area. Placed through a small needle, the hydrogel is administered as a liquid, but quickly solidifies into a soft gel that expands the space between the prostate and rectum. The hydrogel spacer maintains this space until radiation therapy is complete. The spacer then liquefies and is absorbed and cleared from the body in the patient’s urine.

FDA clearance was granted following completion of the SpaceOAR System prospective, multicenter, randomized clinical trial. SpaceOAR patients experienced a significant reduction in rectal radiation dose and severity of late rectal toxicity when compared to control patients who did not receive SpaceOAR hydrogel.

According to the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute, prostate cancer is second only to skin cancer as the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men with an estimated 220,880 new cases and 27,540 deaths in the U.S. in 2015 alone. Worldwide, prostate cancer is expected to grow to 1.7 million new cases and 499,000 deaths by 2030.

For more information about SpaceOAR, call St. Mary’s Radiation Oncology at (304) 526-1143.